Korva is a scroll of the internet’s best ideas.
Kansas Senate race is a toss-up
President Trump held a rally in Kansas, his first there since 2018. He did not hold one when he was on the ballot in 2020 or 2024, because the Republican vote was so locked in. This time he urged Republican voters to turn out.
Kansas is 88% farmland, and only Texas and Montana have more farms. Farmers there face high prices for diesel, fertilizer, and parts, along with grain and beef prices and tariffs that limit access to markets. Nick Levendowski, a farmer in central Kansas, paid $950 for a combine fuel pump that would normally cost a couple hundred dollars less. Farmers have been promised an $8 billion injection into the industry in the form of one-off individual payments.
Early voting is underway, and 25,000 people have already voted. Polling day is two weeks away. Kansas voters can split their tickets, and the current governor is a Democrat.
Why do safe states stop hosting rallies?
Campaigns spend limited time and money where it can change the outcome. A state that leans heavily one way gets few visits because a rally there adds few votes. A common finding in studies of presidential campaigns is that a small handful of battleground states receive the large majority of candidate visits. A rally in a safe state is therefore a signal that something about its map has shifted.
How does ticket-splitting decide Senate races?
Voters in a state can pick one party for president and another for senator or governor. Kansas has done this repeatedly in governor's races. Democrat Kathleen Sebelius won the governorship in 2002, and Laura Kelly won it in 2018 and 2022. Because a Senate race is decided by a statewide vote, a candidate can win by drawing votes from the other party's usual supporters.
How do tariffs hurt farm market access?
When the United States places tariffs on imports, trading partners often respond with tariffs on American exports, and farm goods are an easy target. After China retaliated in 2018, US soybean exports to China fell sharply. The US Department of Agriculture responded that year with a payment program of about 12 billion dollars for affected farmers. Farmers sell on world markets, so a lost buyer pushes down prices for everyone producing the same crop.
Why do energy prices drive fertilizer costs?
Nitrogen fertilizer is made by combining nitrogen from the air with hydrogen in the Haber-Bosch process. Natural gas supplies both the hydrogen and the heat the process needs. When gas prices climb, fertilizer prices tend to follow. Diesel moves with oil prices and fuels tractors and combines, so farm costs rise on both fronts at once.